Barbara Stafford started at the sound of that voice. It was the son of King Philip, who had flung himself in the midst of his most deadly enemies to rescue her from death. Norman Lovel started forward and took his place by the young man, whom he saw for the first time, and toward whom his heart leaped in quick sympathy.
The judges consulted together. The case was a singular one, and they were not altogether certain about admitting a stranger into the provincial courts without due question. But the credentials which the young man submitted were genuine, and after a little he was escorted with considerable show of dignity to a place before the judges. Though armed with the impulses of a giant, and a kind of eloquence that might have kindled enthusiasm in any heart not locked close by superstition, which is the romance of bigotry, he might as well have argued with the rocks on the hills, as attempted that woman's defence before a bigoted jury, and those iron-hearted judges. What argument could he use which would not wound the self-love of those solemn men? how could he arouse sympathies which they repudiated as a sin, or appeal to the judgment which was bound down by prejudices, reverenced as solemn allegations?
At first his voice was husky and faint; the very might of his sympathy for the woman who sat gazing on him so piteously paralyzed his powers; but indignation at last broke the trammels from his speech, and with a loud, clear utterance, he entered upon her defence.
Had not both judges and jury been blind with bigotry and solemn self-conceit, his first argument must have enforced the prisoner's acquittal. With the might of a powerful intellect he unravelled the tissue of evidence, and exhibited the case as it would appear this day. "The evil," he said, "lay not in the gentle lady arraigned before them, but in the disturbed minds of the witnesses: Samuel Parris was a man of books, of meditation, and thought—a poet, diseased by the unwritten music in his soul, which had no power to express itself in long sermons, and to which all other avenues to sympathy were closed up. It was this that had drawn him into the storm, and had sent him to battling the waves face to face with death on the coast. It was this that made love for his child idolatry, from which he was compelled by a sensitive conscience to fast and pray, as from a grievous sin.
"Samuel Parris, the principal witness, was neither insincere nor insane, but a man born in advance of the age, to whom endowments, that would have been greatness if understood even by himself, were turned into a torment and a curse. This quick imagination, this sensitive love, had seized upon the old man's reason, and thus rendered him a most dread witness—a thousand times more dangerous than falsehood or malice could have been, because of his honesty." The other witnesses he touched on lightly and with gentleness, but when he left them and threw his fiery soul into a protest and appeal for the prisoner, the passion of his eloquence was enough to stir even that crowd of prejudging accusers.
Why had Barbara Stafford done these strange things? How, except from the Prince of Darkness, had she attained the power of winning every soul that came in contact with hers into subjection? Why was she possessed of a beauty which died with the first youth of most women—a fresh, proud beauty, to which years only gave grandeur, except that she had made a compact with the evil one, and given her soul in exchange for the marvellous beauty in which her diabolical power principally lay? How could he, or any man, answer charges like these—charges based on imagination only, yet for which a fellow-creature was in jeopardy of her life?
How should he answer? Let the judge and the jury look upon the woman where she sat, with halberts bristling around her, and a tribunal of death that moment waiting to hurl her into eternity; for, guard the dignity of that court as they might, such was its object. See how gently she watches these proceedings—see how brave she is. Though a woman upon the brink of eternity, rich in beauty, and strong with life, she is not afraid to die. Was that the attitude of a fiend? Was that troubled smile, so full of forgiveness and pity, the smile of a devil or an angel? Let the jury look upon that face, and answer to the most high God if they refused to profit by the evidence beaming therein!
Here the men of the jury looked at Barbara Stafford with a single accord, as if they had no power to resist the direction of the young advocate's eye, and it seemed impossible to turn from her gaze, so mournful was the gloom of those large eyes, so calm was the attitude with which she met their scrutiny.
But here one of the judges arose, and warned the jury, that a glance like that was the most dangerous fascination that Satan gave to his witch children, and besought them to look straight toward the bench, thus saving their souls from jeopardy.
Then the wonderful eloquence of the young man was aroused, his magnificent eyes shot fire, his lip curved, and his thin nostrils dilated; all the strength and fervor of his being was flung into the scathing denunciation which he hurled against the court, and against the people whom this tribunal represented. It was the wild eloquence of despair, for he knew when the jury turned to look upon Winthrop, the chief judge, whose rebuke had crushed the rising pity which might have saved Barbara Stafford, that her doom was sealed. Thus, with the terrible conviction that he was avenging the fate of a doomed woman rather than pleading with a hope, he poured out a wild outburst of passionate eloquence—now appeal—now denunciation—now a wailing lament, that made the jury tremble, and the judges turn white in the face, as if an avenging angel had descended to protect the woman they were about to adjudge to death.